Sony is buying ‘Destiny’ studio Bungie

Sony has plans to acquire Bungie, the studio behind the hit sci-fi MMO Destiny, in a deal worth $3.6 billion. Bungie will join the Sony Interactive Entertainment family, which includes Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, Sucker Punch Productions, Bluepoint Games and a handful of other prominent studios.

Bungie is positioning the acquisition as the start of a new era for the company — one focused on global multi-media entertainment, not just games. Bungie will retain creative control over its franchises and continue to develop for multiple platforms, not just PlayStation, according to a blog post by CEO Pete Parsons.

“We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,” he wrote. “We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.​”

The deal follows news on January 18th that Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, and it's the latest sign that the video game industry has entered the consolidation stage. Massive companies including Microsoft, Sony and Tencent are in the process of sweeping up as many studios as they can in a battle for exclusive experiences. As console makers, Sony and Microsoft hold particular power in these negotiations, with built-in audiences of millions on the PlayStation and Xbox platforms.

These deals give the acquired studios financial stability, production support and wide-reaching marketing plans, though they'll have to operate within a corporate ecosystem and potentially tie their games to specific platforms. Bungie, it seems, has plans to publish outside of Sony's PlayStation universe, though time will tell what that looks like in practice.

Developing…